Landmark Forum Leader Insights

A world of invention, of bringing forth, of possibility

By Joe DiMaggio, MD

Language is the bridge between the uncreated and the created worlds. It is both the ultimate reality and the instrument through which reality is brought forth. – Parabola

There’s a world out there and our words describe it, refer to it, talk about it. What we say and how we speak to ourselves and others—might be thought of as a bridge to the world. Because we often think of language as coming in response to the world, we limit the world of language and all that it makes possible to a word to world fit—fitting and matching our words to the world as we know it. The good news is that reality is a phenomenon that arises “in” language. There is no “is reality,” it’s all happening in language.

What it is to be human has its own domain—the domain of language and it’s here where a world of invention, of bringing forth, of possibility, comes into being. Language is not merely a bridge, a response, or a way to deal with the world out there, but in fact what allows for and brings the world into being in the first place. It’s a world to word fit—a model where the direction of things shifts. This shift does not get rid of the lens or filters or mindsets per se, but those filters and mindsets stop defining who we are. When we consider that words can constrain and enlarge the world, a “word shaping world” becomes a very real thing. It puts us in the driver’s seat. It alters the very nature of what’s possible.